They've only hosted two of the songs, which will be easy to play and they will be using the same backing track to improvise too. They'll do this for 4 songs, play a bit of the song and improvise at the end. Playing I'll do alright, improvising is where it'll get me.

I guess I'm asking a lot, but give me some tips I guess. I'm really determined to do good in this since this is basicly my last chance being a senior in highschool. I understand a quite a bit of theory and how things work, so we can leave the basics out of this.

I will try and get a scan of the music we will be playing as soon as possible.

As for my experience level, I know chord theory pretty well, as well as scales. I've only been playing saxophone and reading sheet music for 2 years which is my biggest set back. I've been playing guitar for around 7. I was self taught basically, and it took longer than needed to understand the things that I understand now. Right now I feel like i'm in between the begginer and intermediate range.

My ear isn't the best. I can pick out licks, but they don't always end up in the same key.

Haha yes..... you can always go the "My music is not understood by mere tonal mortals" route.... the train wreck can be passed off as avant garde if you maintain eye contact and a straight face at the audition.....

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Quote:

Originally Posted by AlanHB

It's the same as all other harmony. Surround yourself with skulls and candles if it helps.

F*** the chords in the background, just play Em Pentatoninc (open), Am pent at the 5th, and Bm pent at th 7th, then go back to Em pent. Something's bound to line up somewhere. Just make sure the piece isn't in Ab, Bb or Eb. F would suck up a storm also.

In hindsight, I'm not sure if I got the gist of the question.

Did you mean you had to learn the art of improvising on a schedule, or you wanted to learn to improvise by playing rapidly? The latter would be preferable, as if you play real, real fast, and don't dwell on a note, then people will not notice the clams as much as if you were trying to solo to, "Comfortably Numb".

F*** the chords in the background, just play Em Pentatoninc (open), Am pent at the 5th, and Bm pent at th 7th, then go back to Em pent. Something's bound to line up somewhere. Just make sure the piece isn't in Ab, Bb or Eb. F would suck up a storm also.

In hindsight, I'm not sure if I got the gist of the question.

Did you mean you had to learn the art of improvising on a schedule, or you wanted to learn to improvise by playing rapidly? The latter would be preferable, as if you play real, real fast, and don't dwell on a note, then people will not notice the clams as much as if you were trying to solo to, "Comfortably Numb".

I've been thinking about this one for a little while, and I've come to the conclusion that, at your skill and experience level, I don't think you can learn to improvise "fast."

I know of a high school jazz teacher was has had a lot of students go on to become pros, and he teaches improvisation right from the beginning. Basically, he gets the students playing pentatonic improvisation over basic chord progressions right away.

The pentatonic is a great place to start improvising because it's hard to hit a wrong note. This means you can have a lot of fun playing music while you figure it all out. The problem is that it's so easy to have fun without figuring it all out that too many musicians never take that next step (hence the periodic comments you'll hear about pentatonic wankers - it's not the pentatonic that's the problem, it's the wanking).

Ultimately, to be a good improviser you need to be able to hear an idea in your head and play it. You them expose yourself to a lot of music and generally incorporate the ideas you like into your playing. This can't be learned quickly. So my best advice to you is to practice playing pentatonics over the backing tracks, paying a lot of attention to how what you play is affected by the hanging chords.